Book: All Of Us by Tara Bennett
Reviewed by Maggie Hayes
Rating: 3/5
ARC REVIEW
All of Us by Tara Bennett
3/5 stars
I’m completely here for the premise—three men from very different walks of life finding love together? Sign me up. Unfortunately, while the concept is strong, the execution didn’t fully deliver for me.
I genuinely liked each man and his backstory. Joe, a photographer raised in an extremely religious household, is just beginning to explore intimacy with another man. He’s sweet and a little innocent in a way that feels sincere. Dusty, personal assistant to a rock star, claims he’s not built for relationships and prefers keeping things casual. And Gentry (aka Jacob for some reason), the cowboy still quietly pining for his first love, wants something lasting but worries no one will accept that part of his heart will always belong to someone else. Individually, they work. As pairs, they work. Even as a triad, their personalities complement each other in a way that makes emotional sense.
That said, I wanted more time—more buildup, more emotional groundwork. Dusty goes from “I don’t do relationships” to wanting something serious with Joe without much transition. And when Gentry and Dusty reunite after more than a decade of zero contact, they fall right back into a relationship almost immediately. Given their history as best friends and first loves, I expected more awkwardness, more rediscovery, more conversations about the years apart.
There are moments where the writing feels confused. In one intimate scene told from Joe’s POV, he references a trick he learned from… Joe. It’s a small example, but errors like that happen more than once and pulled me out of the story. It sometimes felt like the character threads weren’t fully tracked. While I did receive an ARC (and this is based on the updated version!), confusion about which characters are speaking/thinking/carrying out acts goes beyond normal ARC errors for me.
Overall, it’s a sweet blend of romance and spice, and I did enjoy the dynamic between the three of them. I just wish more time had been invested in developing the relationships so the emotional shifts felt fully earned. I’m genuinely on the fence—about 50/50—on whether I’ll continue the series.
Thank you to the author for providing an ARC!